


I know who I am

by CherryBlossomLesbian



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bi Natasha Romanoff, Bi Peter Parker, Bi Wanda Maximoff, Coming Out, Domestic Avengers, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Multi, Twisting canon so CW never happened, bi steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBlossomLesbian/pseuds/CherryBlossomLesbian
Summary: The feeling came back whenever Wanda was sparing with a girl, or ran into one on accident grabbing breakfast from her favorite bagel place a little ways away from the compound. It was...a weird feeling. She didn't necessarily know what it meant. Girls aren't supposed to like girls. Girls are supposed to like boys.And she did like boys. But…she liked girls just as much too, had the same feelings for girls as she had for boys.~~~~~~~OR: Wanda realizes she's bi and comes out at her own pace.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Pepper Potts, Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	I know who I am

**Author's Note:**

> Please be warned there's internalized homophobia in this story! Nobody is actually homophobic, Wanda is just struggling with her own sexuality and learning to love herself and be loved.

"Is that my jacket?" 

Wanda looked at the woman standing in front of her. 

The way the red hair, with a gentle wave at the bottom of it, fell upon her shoulders, the color giving a perfect contrast to her black bodysuit. Her eyes flashed with urgency, but Wanda could tell there was kindness and suffering hidden behind the expression. 

"She's with us." The Captain explained, pointing at Wanda as she took a brief moment to breathe in and out, processing the situation and the emotions she was feeling. They were in the middle of a battle, a battle for their lives and her hometown, and yet she was getting a bubbly feeling in her chest that was impossible to ignore. 

"It still doesn't explain the jacket." The woman- Natasha, Wanda realized- said, and the Captain just shrugged in her direction as the battle began once again. 

As Wanda tore into Ultron's bots, she vaguely recalled the encounter, and wondered if it meant something. 

~~~~~~~

It did. 

The feeling came back whenever Wanda was sparing with a girl, or ran into one on accident grabbing breakfast from her favorite bagel place a little ways away from the compound. It was...a weird feeling. She didn't necessarily know what it meant. Girls aren't supposed to like girls. Girls are supposed to like boys. 

And she did like boys. But…she liked girls just as much too, had the same feelings for girls as she had for boys. 

Two people of the same gender loving one another wasn't illegal in Sokovia, but it was certainly heavily frowned upon in all ways. Her mama always told her she'd explain what love was and her own feelings on those things when Wanda was older. 

But the bombs fell when Wanda was ten, and her mama never got to tell her about love and all the other stuff. She was sixteen now, with large gaps of her five years with HYDRA, but she doubted they explained love to her. She was just a weapon to them. 

Luckily, she had a team now to help her out. 

~~~~~~~

"Wanda, you ready?" Steve's voice came out of the comm line in her ear. 

"In position." She replied, taking another sip of the bitter coffee she was holding. 

"If you spot him, don't interact." Steve reminded for the millionth time. 

"Starting to sound like a broken record, Rogers." Sam commented from his spot on the roof of the building adjacent to the coffee shop where Wanda was hiding out on their outside seating area. 

"I feel like one." Steve breathed out in a rare moment of complete honesty.

They were silent for a few moments, waiting for a status update from Romanoff, holding their breaths. 

"I can't find him in the city." Nat admitted through the comms, sighing gently. 

Another failure for finding Barnes. 

Steve's voice cracked over the comms as he told the team to make their way back to the quinjet and prepare for immediate launch. 

Steve retreated to a back room in the quinjet, meant as a changing room but Wanda knew he needed privacy right now. This was the fourth mission she'd been on that had been an attempt for finding the Sergeant, but Steve had been on quadruple that amount to try and find his old best friend. 

Nat rushed after him, leaving Wanda and Sam alone in the main part of the quinjet placed on autopilot. 

Sam slumped against one of the benches after removing his wings and letting them fall to the floor haphazardly, sighing as he did. 

"Why are we still going?" Wanda asked, not realizing she'd said the words aloud until Sam looked up at her in confusion. 

"I mean-" she fidgeted with her hands, a few tiny, harmless sparks of magic floating as she did "-why do we still search after so long?" 

Sam bit the inside of his cheek. 

"...it isn't my place to tell you." He confessed, sighing again. It seemed that was all any of them were capable of at this point. 

Wanda stared at him momentarily, before asking, "What in the world is that supposed to mean?" 

"Ask Steve yourself, when he's a little more composed." Sam replied before moving over to the commands of the ship, contacting the tower. 

~~~~~~~~

"Hey." 

Steve looked at her from her spot peeking uncertainty into his room from the open door. 

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Steve teased, but Wanda couldn't sense any humor in his voice, even if he was trying to make a joke. His face was red and there were obvious tear tracks running down his cheeks 

"I'm sixteen, not a child." She countered back, leaning against the white walls of his bedroom decorated with old newspaper articles and a singular, large poster of Sergeant Barnes and the other Commandos from during the war. 

"So." She said when no reply came from the man after a few minutes, desperate to break the awkward silence. "Nice decorations you got here." 

Steve gave a dry chuckle. "Can't seem to stop living in the past." He said quietly, like he didn't want Wanda to hear. 

"Is that why we keep looking for Sergeant Barnes?" She questioned slowly, not missing the way Steve flinched at the mention of his name. 

"...kind of." Steve swallowed, looking up at Wanda from where he was sitting on the edge of his bed. "Sam tell you anything?" 

"Told me to ask you." Wanda said honestly. 

Steve looked away so he wasn't making eye contact with Wanda when he began to speak again.

"I...the search, this search for Bucky we've been on in the past months….it's because I need to find him. Tell him something I should've told him before that mission in 1945." Steve was shaking, ever so slightly, and Wanda was watching with a keen eye in case it worsened. 

"I need to tell him I love him." He admitted, finally looking back up at Wanda, although his eyes were beginning to fill with tears. 

Wanda stood still for what felt like forever, soaking in the confession. 

"You're….gay?" She asked slowly, raising an eyebrow slightly. 

"More like bi." 

Wanda kept her eyebrow raised. 

"...does that mean I can like girls?" 

It was Steve's turn to raise an eyebrow then. 

"Do you?" He asked, no malice or ill-intent in his voice. It was most like a question, but implying he'd be supportive either way. 

"I…." Wanda turned her head away and shut her eyes. 

"I don't know." She eventually breathed out. 

Steve gave her a little smile, tears still hiding in the corners of his blue eyes.

"You have time to figure it out. You don't have to know right away- hell knows I didn't." He let out another little laugh at that. 

"Now, let's get you to bed. We've got more government briefings in the morning." Steve reminded, rising from the bed to help her back down the hallways to her own bedroom. 

~~~~~~~

The day they finally found Barnes was a relief for all involved. 

He was hiding out in Romania, and a civilian tip led all four of them to a small city and an apartment building with the super-soldier inside.

Steve turned his comms off when he first approached Barnes in full civilian clothing and a non-threatening demeanor. Natasha, Sam and Wanda were on standby in case anything went array. 

Steve was apparently persuasive enough through, because Barnes was in the quinjet extremely quickly and they were back on the way to the compound in no time.

The only thing Barnes had with him was a single backpack and the clothes on his back when he moved into a bedroom next to Steve's in the compound. Eventually he gathered a few other personal items, but it wasn't much to move when he began to share a bedroom with Steve.

Wanda wasn't exactly sure when they confessed to each other or started dating, but by her seventeenth birthday, they were in a happy relationship and very much out to the other Avengers. 

And the others were accepting. 

And with every passing day, Wanda became more and more confident that she did, in fact, like girls. 

She knocked on Steve's door one night, watching him open the door, looking unimpressed. 

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" He asked. It was becoming his favorite joke on Wanda. 

Wanda just scoffed and walked past him, inviting herself in. 

Bucky was in the corner of the large room, pressed into a beanbag in front of the TV with a notebook on his lap and a pen in his hand. He gave a simple nod to acknowledge Wanda's presence, before going back to writing. 

She sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking to accommodate her weight. 

"I think I'm bisexual." She finally confessed after fidgeting for a few minutes. 

Bucky looked up from his notebook and gave her an exceptionally rare smile. 

Steve gave her a smile as well, coming over to envelop her in a large hug. 

"Proud of you, Wanda." He whispered as he held her tighter. Wanda was lucky she was enhanced as well, or she was certain the hug would have seriously injured either her ribs or lungs. 

Or both. 

"Steve, let her breathe." Bucky said, coming to Wanda's rescue.

"Sorry, sorry." Steve apologized as he backed off. "I'm just proud of you, is all." 

Wanda swore she saw Steve wipe away a tear as fast as he possibly could, but it could be the temporary oxygen deficiency due to the crushing hug she'd received prior. 

Steve sat down next to her on the bed, wrapping his arm around her shoulder in another comforting action. He was trying to make her feel accepted and safe, she knew, but she already felt safe. 

The Avengers were her family. They all supported each other, through anything they went through. She still wasn't sure she was ready to tell them all about her sexuality, maybe only Steve and Bucky would know for a while, but knowing that the rest of the team would still be just as supportive was enough for now. 

One day she'd be brave enough to announce it to the rest of her family. One day she'd be brave enough to announce it to the rest of the world.

~~~~~~~~

"Wanda?" 

She glanced up from where she was sitting on the couch in Stark's lab in the tower reading a book. It was written entirely in Sokovian, and was actually recommended to her by Natasha. 

She didn't answer, being used to Stark rambling on about whatever was in that mind of his at the moment and not waiting for a response. 

This time, through, he stayed silent until Wanda prompted him to continue with a little hum of acknowledgement. 

"You know you can tell me anything, right?" He said suddenly, eyes still glued to the hunk of metal and wires in his hands as he began turning a screw within it. 

She didn't answer again, instead just letting a confused expression occupy her features. It wasn't like Stark to be sentimental. 

"What is this about?" She finally asked, noticing her accent coming out thick for the first time in a while. 

"You know the kid... Peter?" Stark asked, moving to set whatever project he was working on off to the side. 

"I know he's Spiderman." She said with a little smile. "If that's what you wanted to tell me." 

She didn't miss the way Stark's lips curved up into the tiniest smile at Wanda's words. 

"He just...kinda...told me a secret. I just wanted to let you know you can talk to me." He let out a deep sigh. "We're a family, right?" 

"Right." Wanda said, biting her lip. "Does...does that mean I can actually tell you something?" 

Stark's eyes perked up, looking at her with an odd mix of confusion and shock. 

"What?" He looked completely surprised that the little speech would have actually gotten a secret out of Wanda, like he was expecting it to just be ignored but he had to get it off his chest.

She put her book down on the other cushion of the couch, not minding the small oil stain. 

"I'm bisexual." She told him, making as much eye contact as she could muster and taking a deep breath when Stark froze at her words. 

She was scared, now. He was rarely silent for long, always had something to say or ramble on about, but the only sound in the workshop was a gentle humming from one of the machines in the corner and she was terrified that he hated her now. That now that he knew, he'd be disgusted with her. 

She was a failure. She liked girls and that made her a failure. He was going to kick her out and she couldn't live on her own again, the last and only time she had tried she had ended up signing up for superpowers she didn't want- 

Stark only started talking when he saw a tear begin to make the long descent down her cheek. 

"Shit, uh." He scrambled up from the desk he'd been working at, rushing over to the couch as Wanda started sobbing in earnest. 

"It's alright, you're fine…" He attempted to soothe, crouching in front of the couch as to not get too close to Wanda when she was like this. She wasn't a danger, really, but sometimes her magic could take a mind of its own when she was emotional. 

"...please don't hate me." She said in between tears, and Stark's entire face lit up in horror. 

"Okay, no, no, no, I don't hate you." He reassured. "Just caught me off guard. Really, it's okay, I promise, you're not going to be looked at any differently." 

And that's how Wanda was now left having told three of her teammates her sexuality. 

So she decided to rip off the band-aid. 

~~~~~~~

It was usually a fifty-fifty whether Wanda joined in on weekly movie night or not. 

Using her magic took a lot out of her, so on days when they had missions she usually fell asleep entirely too early and would miss movie night if it fell on one of those days. Other times she just felt like being alone. 

But she had to go this time. She had a plan. 

Their usual date of Wednesdays for movie night had been moved to Friday for this week, due to a critical mission happening on Wednesday evening where a fair amount of them had to spend the entire night in medical- Wanda was lucky enough to be able to sleep in her own bed that night. 

Since it was a Friday, and therefore not a school night, Peter had gone from school immediately to the tower to work on projects with Stark, and was sleeping over for movie night.

In attendance tonight, right before 8pm came along, was Peter, Tony, Pepper, Bruce, Natasha, Rhodey, and Sam. 

A minute before 8pm, Steve walked into the common room, finding his usual place on the couch and sitting down. 

"Where's the mister?" Tony asked, to which Steve sighed. 

"Taking a nap." Steve responded, a little blush creeping across his cheeks. "I...didn't want to wake him." 

"Awwww." Sam mocked. 

"So we can't have our usual "teaching the ancient ones pop culture through movies", so what are we watching?" Rhodey asked, turning on the large TV in the common room. 

"Nothing R-rated." Pepper stated. 

Peter whined. "I'm sixteen!" 

"Nothing R-rated." Tony repeated. 

Wanda swallowed and paled as they continued arguing about the movie to watch, Natasha smiling and looking around the room to make sure everybody was okay. 

That's when she caught sight of Wanda, eyes wide and face pale as a ghost.

"Wanda?" She asked, and suddenly all eyes were on her and she questioned, briefly, if she actually wanted to do this. If she actually wanted to come out to the team, to her family. 

And the answer was yes. 

"Yeah, uh, yeah." She stumbled over her words, her sickly pale face starting to grow a deep shade of red in record time. 

Everybody kept staring at her. She felt a few sweat beads form at her forehead. 

Why was it so much easier to come out to one or two people at a time then a whole group? Was it because it was more people to judge her? To hate her? 

"I'm bisexual!" She finally spit out, watching both Steve and Tony smile at the same time, having already known. 

"Same." Peter said, as if the words just fell out of his mouth. He paled the same way Wanda had a few minutes prior once he realized what he said. 

Natasha smiled. "Glad all three of us could do this tonight." 

~~~~~~~~

It had been about a week since she, Peter, and Natasha all came out to the team at unexpectedly the same time, and Wanda was forced out of her safe havens between the tower and the compound to some Gala further out in the city for the seventh anniversary of the Avengers' Initiative coming to fruition. 

She slowly worked the earrings into her lobes, a circular earring resembling the Arc Reactor on her left ear and another circular one resembling Steve's shield on her right. Her hair was tied up into a bun, and a halter-top bright red dress with a long, tulle skirt was clinging to her form. 

There was a gentle knock on the door, too soft to be either Steve, Bucky, or Tony. She hesitantly told them to come in, and was delighted to see Pepper enter. 

"You're not coming?" She asked, finishing putting the earrings in and adjusting to the change in weight on her lobes. Pepper was wearing sweatpants and an MIT t-shirt that was most likely Tony's. 

"I'm...just tired." She said, which Wanda could tell was an excuse. 

"Mhm." Wanda said, obviously not believing that was the reason, or that that was the only reason. 

"But I did get you something." Pepper said, placing a small, white box on Wanda's vanity. 

Wanda looked at her in suspicion. 

"Just open it." Pepper said with a small smile, a hand hovering oddly over her stomach.

Wanda carefully lifted the top of the box off, to find a rose gold necklace sitting on a cotton pillow within the box. The necklace was attached to a small heart pendant, with the colors of the bisexual flag glazed onto the pendant and sealed over with gloss. 

"You don't have to wear it tonight if you're not ready." Pepper explained. "Although it is a new prototype of a recycled pendant." She added. 

"I love it." Wanda assured her, picking it up out of the box. 

"Can you?" Wanda motioned to the necklace. 

Pepper smiled. 

"Of course." She said softly, taking the necklace out of Wanda's hands to carefully clasp it around her neck. 

Wanda admired it in the mirror, the way the colors shone through and completely added a new depth of color to her entire outfit. 

She was so happy she might cry. 

"Thank you." She said, pulling Pepper into a hug. 

Pepper wrapped her arms around Wanda, holding her tight as well. 

Wanda Maximoff was ready to come out to the world. 

And she was proud.

**Author's Note:**

> The end scene may slightly elude that Pepper is going to have Morgan soon in the future in this universe, that's just kinda how I ended up writing it and I kept it. 
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cartersleia)


End file.
